ReACH (Raising Awareness on the Crisis in the Horn)

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The Idea

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During the week of February 27th, we, a group of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health students, plan to host ReACH a keynote program and panel discussion intended to display the rich cultural history of the Horn, discuss the complex issues surrounding the famine and identify potential solutions.

The Specifics

Our program has 2 components:

REACH: We will use social media to publicize ReACH, which will raise awareness about the crisis and garner support. In addition, we will extend invitations to local, national and global academic institutions to participate through live video streaming of the keynote and panel discussion.

TEACH:: The keynote speech will be delivered by an expert to highlight the history and culture of the Horn. This will be followed by a panel discussion to showcase issues contributing to the famine. The panelists will include a media representative, a humanitarian aid worker, a diplomat representing Somalia, academic experts in international health from Hopkins, and a member from the local Somali community.

Discussion

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This project was started by a group of students back in August of 2011 when we started wondering how we can effectively contribute to the aid effort in the Horn of Africa. We investigated solutions with several experts in international health, food security and public health. The consensus at the time that there was very little that could be done on the ground by regular civilians because of the security concerns. The most effective and immediate contribution that we could make was to be a program raising awareness, which will indirectly increase donations to the many NGOs that are currently on the ground. This is what we hope to do with REACH. In fact, we would love to take it a step further by leveraging the diversity in multiple perspectives with our event to come up with real solutions. VOTE for us and you can be a part of this effort too!

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The event involves prominent individuals who will bring perspectives from different angles. It aims to reach students and faculty at Hopkins plus other thirty higher educational institutions. This will bring a huge impact in terms of understanding the problem and in the effort to look for viable solutions.

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As members of the international community deeply concerned about the escalating famine in Somalia, we have been brainstorming ways in which we can make a positive contribution. Our research has lead to us to believe that raising funds alone is not going to be sufficient to solve the complex problem.

FAMINE IS MAN-MADE and it is important that everyone is aware of this.

We need to bring the media, academia and policy-makers together in one place to debate and discuss and hopefully, find a solution. We NEED to do this to save the thousands of lives that are threatened at the moment AND to prevent this from repeating again in the future. After all the current crisis is a repeat of the previous one in 1991.